In the last 15 years, real estate marketing has undergone a dramatic shift. Real estate web design and development has facilitated the latest disruptive marketing technology. With the advent of the Internet, online marketing has become many consumers’ first choice in shopping for merchandise from knickknacks on Ebay to multimillion dollar luxury real estate and homes. Shop at the best shops any time and don’t worry about dark parking lots.

What is affect of a disruptive technology? A disruptive technology lets new comers or pioneers who adapt first in a market quickly take a dominant position. Older, larger, even better financially situated companies may find that these traditional assets of size and wealth actually hinder their ability to adapt. The Internet greatly leveled many marketing playing fields, from real estate sales, retail sales of clothes and books to mortgages & banking.

In the real estate field, traditionally most business was from referrals. The Internet’s disruptive technology can be seen in the shift in homes searches from Realtors driving clients to homes to finding the Realtor’s websites and taking a virtual tour or the home. Critical to the new shift in referrals is that Google and other search engines are acting as the referral source, not the neighbor or next of kin

The real estate agents and brokers who adapted first to Internet marketing or came in later investing in a competitive web design, have received more than just a return on investment, they began to take in a larger share of the market. Suddenly, a real estate agent ready to invest in their own real estate website was on equal footing as the largest agency to capture leads from the growing online market of home buyers.

In the disruptive technology situation such as Internet marketing, the traditional giants in the field that rely on their successful traditional marketing do not perceive the shift until it has become a unstoppable erosion in their market. To use a real estate term, the small and fast online marketing adapters receive the accretion of that market erosion.

IMCD Web Design took advantage of the Internet’s shift in marketing to fill the newly evolving web development niche. IMC quickly adapted our graphic design and marketing copywriting experience to the new paradigm of search engine optimization and web hosting to mold a powerful Interment marketing package for our clients. Do you need to shake things up in your marketplace? Contact IMC to see how our web design and development can help your company ride the opportunity wave of Internet marketing with a professional online presence.

Can your real estate website and your services benefit by putting in the effort to create a personal brand as a real estate agent specializing on a market niche? National Association of Realtors (NAR) studies found that Realtors who invest in training to gain a particular designation make more money than their less trained counterparts. IMCD Web Design has found that clients purchasing their own agent website make sure that their real estate website clearly shows all their specialist training and credentials.

Two reasons may be behind the improved performance of market specialists: increased trust from real estate buyers and sellers and with increased training, business opportunities become more apparent. By placing their real estate training credentials on their websites, Realtors gain that “third party” credibility factor.

By staying with one area of expertise and building up a reputation and experience, real estate agents can take advantage of the number one factor in choosing an agent. Any testimonials that you can post on your real estate website or blog that reinforce your reputation is the best advertising you can do. Building on reputation, a sign that you have created a personal brand as a market specialist is when you get referrals due to your specific experience in your real estate market. Longevity has its rewards with referrals, since the NAR found that the longer a Realtor had been in business, the higher percentage of their business was referrals.

After reputation, real estate clients perceive a greater knowledge of either a geographical area or a particular commercial or residential market niche as the asset that is desired. In fact, most buyers check their agent’s market knowledge as a major factor in choosing them.

In IMC’s experience designing websites for real estate agents across the country, we have seen that sites the tailor their keywords to their specific market niche and utilize their credentials and testimonials to create lasting brands keep their websites organically high ranked in their various target markets. Our website designers can help you improve your personal branding as a market niche specialist with our successful Agent Select real estate websites.

While the national average of home sales in June 2008 fell to 1998 levels, towns like Sacramento CA, Las Vegas and Florida markets in Orlando and Fort Myers actually continued to have strong sales. Orlando had the biggest jump in housing sales since 2005, though prices were 15 percent off of 2007 June levels.

Real estate agents that used their current real estate market slowdown as a time to intensify their efforts to increase their real estate website’s search engine visibility are positioning themselves to be in a much better position when the market reverses – sort of like fixing the roof when it isn’t raining. With greater numbers of both real estate buyers and sellers turning to the Internet to pre-qualify property and real estate agents, it is critical that agents not only have a real estate website, but have one that is designed and built to stay competitive and visible on the first five pages of Google. (Even if Google is not your search engine of choice, most people in your real estate market are using it for their property searches.)

IMCD Web Design has found that creating a winning website is a two step process. First, set a solid foundation with a website that is designed and built by professionals who know the real estate website market and stay current on search engine optiimization techniques. Second, have a solid plan in place to continually add content and updates to your site. IMC has an Article Manager, Featured Listings module and a great integration with a real estate blog platform that gives you a variety of ways to serve information to your clientele and website visitors as well as the content-hungry search engines. It is no mystery that our highest search engine ranking clients have the most active real estate websites.

If your real estate website is in need of a redesign in order to be better positioned for higher visibility in the real estate Internet searches, now is a good time. Be ready to take the wave of the real estate market turnaround at its crest and grab those Internet surfers looking for your properties!

How can a 100 year old (or older) marketing technique help you create or boost your real estate agent website, image or personal brand? The quirks of homebuyers’ and sellers’ curiosity are as strong and influential on the marketing process now as they were 100 years ago.

Often overlooked is how to present your professional expertise with the marketing technique called “pre-emptive advantage”. Claude Hopkins, one of the marketing wizards of the early 20th century used this simple technique to improve the market share of his clients. The pre-emptive advantage is simply be the first real estate agent in your area that tells your potential clients what you do … that all the other agents do also. The key is to tell it first and in such an educational way the buying public has the sense that you just let them in on your “insider” marketing news.

People love the inside scoop – information that you see as day-to-day services that every agent does may well be assistance that most people utilizing your real estate services are not aware of. IMCD Web Design coaches its clients to use this simple but effective marketing technique on their “About Us” page and versions of it on the home page. By telling your potential clients what you do for home buyers and sellers, you are educating them in why they appreciate what you do. Don’t assume your clients are aware of all the hard work you put into their real estate deal – you need to spell it out in your marketing.

You can easily double the mileage from your pre-emptive advantage marketing by sprinkling customer testimonials throughout your story of all the steps you take to insure your clients’ success. The story format is also a time tested way of increasing a person’s curiosity and interest in what your professional expertise can do for them.

In building your story, test market various aspects with your customers when you are talking to them about their pending home sale or purchase. Those aspects of your work that elicit the most surprise or appreciation are great material for your image-building marketing campaign. A home is quite likely both a long-time and important investment for your customer. They want to know as much as possible about the benefits they will receive from working with you.

And lastly, don’t worry about the length of your marketing piece, if you write it in such a way that all your hard work is about your customer, people will read every last word that is written about them. This technique also fulfills one of the requirements of a successful real estate website design: Establish trustworthiness and credibility.

Your real estate website is your best platform for extolling the benefits of your Realtor expertise. But use a venture capitalist’s reaction to judge how well you present your services. Many small business owners make the mistake of being to general in their claims of company growth with statements like “targeting a 5% share of a 47 gazillion dollar market”. The VC blank stare should give some indication of the lack of sales punch. Missing ingredient? Specifics that can be backed up. In marketing, generalities leave no impression.

Unfortunately for marketers, we have 3,000-some years of using superlatives and semi-hard to prove statistics to improve our market share. Now our DNA seems to immune to general claims. The biggest problem with generalities is that it detracts from your real estate websites credibility, since people assume that there is a touch of “telling the truth carelessly” as the Irish put it.

One way of adding specifics to your website is to make sure your testimonials from successful home sales or purchases are specific. These can also be strengthened by adding a personal story dimension. For example, “We were interested in a five bedroom house with plenty of sunlight and play area for our growing family. Our Realtor, Seymour Houseman, found the perfect home near a very good school within two weeks of beginning our home search.” Add specifics and testimonials for each market you are targeting: families, military transplants, vacation home buyers, condo owners or commercial real estate investors.

Since your marketing is directed to a particular market, make sure it is specific on the benefits that your market will perceive. As master marketer Claude Hopkins said, “If a claim is worth making, make it in the most impressive way.” An example he uses to drive home the need for specifics is when you greet a customer, who responds to you best: the one you say “How do you do?” or the one you greet with specific questions about their well-being or livelihood.

Make the best use of your agent biography pages and real estate website’s homepage with specifics about your professional expertise, track record and client satisfaction. If you only have a half a minute for people to check your homepage, what do you want them to remember? Make sure you tell them specifically!

The constancy of a real estate website keeps your marketing presence strong through the unpredictable nature of the market. The April 2008 homes sales figures show an increase in residential sales that surprised market forecasters who figured for a Fall 2008 turn around in the real estate market. Then comes June’s figures that surprise everyone with the steepness of housing drop. The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors pointed out that April’s imminent sales contracts picked up, notably in regions that suffered significant price drops, “Bargain hunters have entered the market en masse, especially in areas that have experienced double-digit price declines.” The sales figures did not note whether the buying market was driven by home buyers or investors capitalizing on the home prices.

The April sales contracts turn-around was most marked in the Midwest and West real estate markets, possibly indicating that these markets have homes priced to meet both a buyer’s interest and borrowing capacity. Even with the bad news of the economy reacting to both home sales figures, continuing subprime credit ripples, and the federal bail out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the good news is real estate is a hot topic, keeping it in the consumers mind.

Besides the multi-billion dollar bailout, Congress is currently considering giving another tax break to home buyers. If the bill passes, it may help reinforce the improvements in residential real estate sales. Another real estate tax break may give impetus to releasing the pent-up demand built up by a population increase that has not seen a corresponding increase in home sales. The United States continues to have home sales levels taht are more typical of the market 10 years ago. In the last 10 years, the population has increased by 25 million people. The 2009 resale housing market will be affected by another long term economic situation: the increasing cost of building new new homes. With China’s economy hungry for steel, copper and oil, the cost of materials and transportation is increasing, which has a direct affect on the entry level pricing for new home construction.

With the attention to real estate in the news, a real estate agent website ranking high on the Google and Yahoo searches stands to harvest leads from the market-tracking home buyers. These buyers are finding current mortgage rates and the low real estate prices matching their personal loan prequalifcation levels. Although April’s mix of sales did contain a high number of foreclosure and bank sales, it was not the majority. A real estate agent from the Gulf Coast of Florida remarked about the banks’ pricing of foreclosed homes, “The ‘real’ is back in real estate and homes are now affordable.” With June’s figures and lower home prices, investors are finding certain real estate markets where the rental income exceeds the mortgage payments and thus a good time to invest.

If improving your real estate website with a blog or simply getting your own real estate agent website has been on your back-burner due to the market slowdown, now is a good time to seriously put it on your Action List. With the threat of inflation in the news, buyers are looking to protect their wealth by investing in good deals on vacation condos, second homes and retirement properties. These investors are most likely to make their moves in the near future, as interest rates start moving up. IMCD Web Design’ real estate websites have helped many real estate agents increase their warm leads and home sales. Is it time to see if IMC can help you increase your warm sales leads and home sale closings?

New Realtors need all the real estate marketing exposure they can get. According to National Association of Realtors recent report on their 2007 surveys Realtors who have been in the real estate business 2 years or less earn a median income of $10,500 a year and only get 2% of their leads from referrals. What can a new Realtor do to increase their chances of success in that critical first two years of building momentum – the time period when most Realtors quit the business for a more secure paycheck? IMCD Web Design recently introduced its Version 9 Real Estate Web Design especially designed for new Realtors.

When the marketing budget is tight, as with most new Realtors, one of the best investments is in a professional real estate website. IMCD Web Design has over a decade of helping new Realtors enter the market with a real estate website that has a very polished and attractive layout, engineered to rank in the search engines (and thus attract leads) as well as a modular architecture to which additional selling tools can be added as the marketing budget grows. The modularity feature of the site allows for future expansion with a number of avenues – blog, neighborhood news, additional buyer, seller or investor pages – available to add keyword-rich content to your website.

Version 9 comes in seven different color schemes that were chosen after studying market data on what color schemes attract visitors to a website, and more importantly, what color schemes tend to make visitors want to stay. Visit our web page to view the different color schemes. Of course, as a website design company, IMC can customize your real estate website design with a custom color scheme as a website upgrade design feature.

As with the rest of IMC’s Agent Select website designs, Version 9 can be upgraded with a custom homepage that features a Flash slide show in place of the main banner image. This real estate website design is very versatile in its ability to adapt any number of customizations to the basic website.

Although Version 9 was created to give new Realtors the advantage of starting out with a cost-effective real estate website design, veteran real estate agents were quick to see the advantages of the versatile design. Recently IMC finished a Version 9 real estate website that included a custom home page, the real estate blog, neighborhood news articles tool, and the featured properties listings tool. The Realtor was aware of the advantages the various Internet real estate marketing tools gave his company – both in appealing to home buyers searching for their next home as well as the search engines combing the website for content.

Stack the deck of business cards in your favor by getting your professionally designed real estate website to attract that 90% of the market using the Internet to search the listings in your market.